[http://www.amyguerra.com] The title of this blog comes from a New Yorker article by the same name. The article, subtitled "Did Texas execute an innocent man?" tells the sad, but enthralling story of Cameron Todd Williams, a death-row inmate put to death in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three children. Mr. Williams' case gives insight into how a culmination of factors can either convict or absolve a person, depending on the interpretation.

An excerpt:

The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

Another portion of the article touched on the troubling nature of Mr. Willingham's representation, which was upheld despite his claims that hi. In the context of the article's discussion of alternative explanations for the fire, a quote from Willingham's own attorney stood out:

“All the evidence showed that he was one hundred percent guilty. He poured accelerant all over the house and put lighter fluid under the kids’ beds.” It was, he said, “a classic arson case”: there were “puddle patterns all over the place—no disputing those.”

Willingham often told his parents, “You don’t know what it’s like to have lawyers who won’t even believe you’re innocent.” Like many inmates on death row, Willingham eventually filed a claim of inadequate legal representation. (When I recently asked Martin about his representation of Willingham, he said, “There were no grounds for reversal, and the verdict was absolutely the right one.” He said of the case, “Shit, it’s incredible that anyone’s even thinking about it.”) Read more: Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty : The New Yorkerhttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann#ixzz0k9BdLs7kwww.newyorker.com

About the Author

Amy K. Guerra is a criminal defense attorney in Fresno, CA. In addition to her career in criminal defense, she's worked as a freelance writer and within the non-profit sector. She continues to be active in the community and enjoys writing about issues in criminal law relative to their community impact.